Friday, November 29, 2013

It's here! The First Day of Christmas is now available AND I figured out a solution to my pricing problem.

My intent was to release each day's adventures for $.49 for those who like their erotic romance a little bit at a time. Later (December 10th) the entire book would be available for $4.99 - for those who want the whole meal all at once.

But Amazon and Smashwords won't let me price it that low. My solution?

Every even-numbered book will be free.

Yep, that's right. Buy the first story at $.99, the second one costs nothing. The third story will be $.99 and the fourth - not a penny! You get the picture.

So get 12 Days; The First Day of Christmason the Kindle or at Smashwords for all other formats. Watch this site for links for each succeeding story over the next twelve days to get the entire collection.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

EDIT: Drat! Neither Smashwords nor Amazon will let me set the price at anything below $.99. Rethinking...12 Days of Christmas (Bondage) now has it's own page on the website. Remember, each story is being sold separately for $.49. On December 10th, all twelve stories go on sale in one volume for $4.99.

Observant readers may also realize the book has a new (and final!) name. Took me a while to figure it out, but I think this title says it all.

There are no links on the page yet, since none of the stories are yet available. But if you want to see what all the fuss is about, go take a look!

Sunday, November 24, 2013

FULLY OWNED, a title by Mystic Shade, is #2 on A1Adultebooks' website and has reached the first sales level. Yippeee! I'd love to see this move even further up the chart. Would be great if it got at least to the Diamond Level - level Under His Spell made it to.

Fully Owned is actually the third in the Jack Kariola's slaves series. It's available on all reader platforms and is a very hot, very sexy read that's getting some good reviews. Double celebration!!! Over My Enslaved Body and Traitor Slave are the first and second books, respectively, in that series.

Catching up:

My NaNoWriMo has been a bust. My parents are moving out of their house of nearly 30 years and trying to pare down 57 years of marriage to fit into a senior citizen apartment. I'm glad they're moving - its the right thing to do. Taking care of a big lawn and extra rooms is not the way I want to spend my elder years, either. Less housework is always a good thing!

But it has cut into my writing time. As a result I've spent most of the month getting my next releases ready.

First up is 12 Days, a look into bondage and D/s through the ages. You know the 12 Days of Christmas, well this is the song with a very kinky twist. Each story is being published starting the day after the American Thanksgiving (November 29th) for $.49. Yes, you read that right. Forty-nine cents. Then, on December 10th, the full novel will be available for $4.99 (so for you looking to save a few pennies, that's getting two of the stories for free - if you can wait). I'm really looking forward to this release because this has been one of my favorite pieces to write!

And Diamond Submission is coming soon from Ellora's Cave. The ten-year anniversary of Secret Submission was in September and, in August, I got curious as to what Phillip and Sarah were up to. So I went to visit and found they're still very much in love, and still having some very erotic sex! Not sure on a release date with this one, but keep an eye here for news. Of course, you can always sign up for my newsletter - subscribers get the news first! :)

Reminder:

All royalties from sales of A Night to Remember, from now through December 31st, are going to Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy in honor of Tania and AJ Vercher. Tania and her tw-year-old son were killed at the end of September in a horrific case of road rage. Heath Vercher, a talented performer and composer, is a friend and chose the charity. This is my way of honoring his wife and son. So far we've raised a little over $200 and I'd love to see that number climb.

Hope the rest of you are writing your fingers off - or reading fast enough to keep us writers going. You keep buying, we'll keep writing!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Yeah, that's my reaction every time I realize I missed posting a workshop on a Tuesday. Lucky for me, this is NaNoWriMo time and everyone's busy writing their own novels. Workshops will be back in December with some tips on how to edit what you're creating.

Play safe...and watch this space for news of a new release coming at the end of the month!

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Many thanks to Andrea of Virtual Writers, Inc for the invitation to come do a workshop in-world at their Milkwood studio. I had a great time!

Below is a brief summary of my presentation and the complete list of questions I posed for your consideration. Feel free to come back to these questions as needed - for this or any future stories you write.

Workshop

Genre rules often dictate plot. Coming of age stories have
an event that jump starts maturity, science has to play a large part of a
science fiction story (otherwise just a ‘western in space’ –also a legitimate
genre). I write erotic romance which means my stories have to have a
happily-ever-after ending.

So if the basic plot outline is already known to the
reader (Polti’s 36 situations), how can you make your stories different? No two
people are alike, and neither should be any two characters.

I’m a pantser, which means I don’t plot a lot of stuff
out first, probably because my plot is genre-driven. I do, however, know my
characters pretty well by the time I’ve finished the first thousand words. I
keep a running record of information about the character as I go so I can stay
consistent. This isn’t so important with a short story, but is vital for a
longer work.

And that’s what we’re going to do today. You’re going to
need a piece of paper and something to write with. Use your writing journal if
you have one, or just scrap paper nearby. Alternately, type your answers into
your word processing program or into a notecard here in SL for safekeeping.

We’ll focus on just your protagonist for now, so get him/her
in your head. Write his/her name at the top of the page, if you know it, to
help you focus.

Each of the questions I’m going to ask is designed to give
you a fuller understanding of the person you’re creating. Not all of what you
answer today will work its way into the story (JK Rowling has entire notebooks
dedicated to each of her characters, MOST of which didn’t end up in the novels.
But because she had a clear idea of who everyone was, she was able to write the
memorable characters we’ve all come to love).

The questions are designed to help you “think outside the
box” as it were. To consider parts of your character you might not have
considered and that may or may not work into the story itself. Knowing this
information, however, might affect how you write the character.

Some of the questions might not pertain to you or your
story. Skip those and answer what’s important to your story.

*****

Financial situation:

What social class does your protagonist belong to? Has
he/she always been in this class?

How does your character feel about money? What does he/she
do for a living?

Does money (or the lack of it) come into play when it comes
to your protagonist’s relationship with other characters?

How does the character’s financial situation affect his/her
education?

Voice

Every person has their own set of vocabulary, their own
unique way of saying things. What words/phrases are unique to this character?
If you don’t have one yet, make something up. What’s something he/she might say,
for example, as a response to a simple question like, “How are you?”

What words does he/she use when expressing approval?
“Neat-o, cool beans,” are examples.

What about disapproval?

Any pet names for people – or animals, for that matter. I’m
thinking the stereotypical waitress who calls everyone “hon” or the street hood
wannabe who calls everyone “bro”

Education

Staying with your protagonist, what level of education does
he/she have?

How does that level of education impact his/her financial
status? What about word choices?

How will that level impact his/her relationship with either
the other protagonist or with the antagonist?

Values

What is the most important thing in the entire world for
your protagonist?

Does he/she have it? If not, why not? If yes, how would
he/she feel if it were lost?

Of the following, which is most important to your character:
honesty, love, money, power?

How does knowing that about your character affect the story?
Or you as the author?

What is your character’s biggest turn-on? Turn-off? Why?
Come up with something from his/her past that makes them feel that way.

Hobbies

I’m going to give you some pairs of words. Choose the one
that best fits your protagonist.

Watch TV/go to the movies (what genres?)

Watch a sport/play a sport (which ones?)

Read a book/read a magazine (what genres)

Wash dishes/dry dishes/use the dishwasher/

Make dinner/go out to eat?

*****

So what do you
know about your protagonist now that you didn’t know before?

Okay, read over your responses
and choose one piece of information to focus on. Take ten minutes to write
either a scene for their novel that incorporates the answer or to jot down
ideas for your novel from the answers you came up with. Go!

The dead speak to Kara Godwin. A walk through the cemetery
fills her head with stories...stories she publishes as fiction for some
much-needed cash.

But that's all they are - stories. Until the day one of them
follows her home.

Robert Walton is real. He fell in love with Mary Shelley and
she immortalized him as the ship’s captain who rescues Victor Frankenstein.
Only she did more than that...

Now Kara Godwin must decide what to do with Frankenstein's
Captain....

*****

As promised in my newsletter, I have rewritten, re-edited and republished this novella formerly known as Kara's Captain. While I generally prefer not to rewrite past stories, this one has always tugged at me. The characters wanted more and I wanted to give it to them. More what? Um...I DO write erotic romance, remember? :) Frankenstein's Captain is nearly ten thousand words longer than the original story, so you know Kara and Robert wanted a lot more!

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a novel I've loved for years. I first read it in college, not for a class, but because I was working my way through the classics just for fun. Moby Dick, Ivanhoe, Jane Eyre...I read them all because, well, they had to make it onto the classic list for some reason!

Frankenstein so stuck with me that I ended up sharing the novel with my students. Because the language can be exalted and the grammar complicated, I read it out loud to several classes, tying it in with current research in artificial intelligence, body part replacement and genetics. Every year I found new articles in these fields. Mary Shelley published her piece of fiction in 1816, but it reads like non-fiction today with all the advancements that have been made.

Still, it works as a cautionary tale against unthinking obsession and begs the question: Just because we can invent something, should we? At what point do ethics and morality step forward and say no, don't go there? Good questions we're still grappling with.

Robert Walton is Victor Frankenstein's foil in Mary Shelley's book. Victor is exhausted, having spent his energy chasing the creature he created. He discovers that Walton has similar passionate feelings about his own desire to find the North Pole. "Do you share my madness?" Victor asks him. "...let me reveal my tale and you will dash the cup from your lips!" The framing provided by Walton now sets up the arena for Victor to take over the story and tell his "tale."

But what if Walton was a real person? What if he truly existed and had something to teach us today? That's the 'what if?' at the center of Frankenstein's Captain. I never liked the original title because it put the emphasis on the wrong character. Kara's important...very important to the story, but ultimately, it isn't her story, it's his. His story of survival, of desire and, eventually, understanding that love for another person is the strongest force of all.

So I am pleased I had the opportunity to refocus this story, adding more than just sex to it (although there's a good deal of that, too!). I hope you enjoy Frankenstein's Captain as much as I did writing it. Click here (or on any of the hyperlinked titles) to purchase. And don't forget to add a review!